Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Althor's Abacus for Paladins?

I was chatting with another paladin healer today, and noticed he was using [Althor's Abacus]. I was a bit surprised, because it seems like another [Trauma], which really wasn't that good for paladins.

However, this paladin said that the Abacus was very good. According to him, it can proc when someone gets healed from his Judgement of Light. This means that it actually has a pretty high proc rate. He claimed that the Abacus accounted for a full 3% of his heals.

I don't play a pally (disc priest here) but that trinket certainly does a fair bit. From my raid last night (front half of ICC-25, seven boss kills), Echoes of Light (the Abacus proc) was 629,054 healed, 3.1% of my total healing for the night.

Since the proc has an internal cooldown and (apparently) a high proc chance, I'm really not sure why it would differ significantly in value for different healing classes. Regardless of spell usage, it should go off pretty quickly after the ICD is cooled down.

To the first Anon:He's confused. No healing item will proc off Judgement of Light. It's a basic mechanic of the game. And frankly, if any Paladin is using this, run far far away. Like you said, it's as bad as Trauma.

Maybe you are the one confused? As Carson 63000 commented, the Abacus has an ICD (internal cooldown). So, why would Althor's use differ significantly for any healing class?

I agree with the internal cooldown speculations, this was the first thing that popped in my mind too.

Besides, with the glyph of holy light considered, the dot from FoL+SS, and of course "2 for the pric of one" beacon, both items are definitely as effective for paladins as other healers, even without the internal cooldowns considered, or the fact that JoL could proc them (which I also heard is true).

On the other hand, unless this guy is a FoL focussed paladin (rare breed), this still isn't a recommended trinket. Then again, drops aren't always a choice and an upgrade is an upgrade.

Cat: Trauma will proc off of Glyph of Holy Light heals. It will only proc off the Judgement heals that heal a character who is using Trauma (because the person who triggers the Judgement heal is considered the "caster" of the heal).

I don't see how it would really be much worse for any specific class. The limiting factor is the ICD, not the proc rate. While druids may proc it a few seconds sooner while HoTing 20 people, that's not going to make a huge difference. You should still be getting the free heal every 50-55secs on average. For me, it also hovers around 3% of my healing done depending on the fight.

What makes trauma so much better for druids/shamans is the lack of ICD, meaning those 20 HoTs are not only procing it faster, but possibly multiple times. That's what makes giving up the stats useful, especially to a raid healer.

"In my opinion, it's not that critical whether it procs off Judgement of Light or not.

The main point is that the trinket has an ICD and a high proc chance. Obviously, if it does work off JoL, the heal will proc faster. But it won't be significantly faster (5 sec faster maybe?)

Hence, the first Anon comment of And frankly, if any Paladin is using this, run far far away is simply mis-guided."

Azzur, read the freakin main post. The paladin's primary argument for using the trinket was that it proc'd off of JoL. That is completely false, which is what I stated. Clearly as an addendum, I stated that it was bad for Paladins. Not because of the proc, but because it's +sp. Any +int trinket is still better than any +sp trinket available. My 'misguided' statement was based on every known theorycrafting source for holy paladins.

The reason that other healing classes would generally find this more useful than paladins is because, for holy light focused paladins (the vast majority of those doing pve HL), spellpower is not a very good stat at all compared with intellect, which we gem for heavily. Holy light already heals with a ton of overheal, so any trinket pair with over a 100 int each (or solaces naturally) would allow more holy light spamming and be a better choice.

It doesn't proc off JoL (that'd be far too overpowered), but it does off HL splash. For the record, the Abacus can be considered "equalized" for all healing classes. It has a 45 second ICD and a 30% proc rate, which means that "blanket" classes do not get a higher return out of it than others.

That said, it will generally be a much better tool in the hands of a raid healer, if only because there are better trinkets out there for healadins. Throughput procs tend to be far less useful for tank healing than for raid healing, since it is so unpredictable. Going with two mana regen trinkets (double Solance or Solace/Talisman) will let you gear more heavily towards -constant- throughput. You'll not have to be at the mercy of a proc.

Almost all the WoLs I've seen for healadins with the Abacus shows a high rate of overheal on the proc, more than for raid healers due to the range of the "smart" heal. Seeing as ilevel means almost nothing to a holy paladin (extra spellpower on those Holy Lights is pretty much wasted), I'd never take this thing for non-PvP. For PvP, it looks TASTY.

truth is: It does proc off of judgment of light actually just happened to me in H VH actually. All i did was JoL and /sleep maybe a FoL every once in a while. Overall healing in there it accounted for 34% of my heals. Not a good showing but in most raids its between 2 and 4 %.